UPDATE: JUST POSTED A NEW ORIGINAL SONG

Hello people, I was busy coming up with the follow up song for "Edge of the Mind". I spent the whole September to perfect my new song and ended up with a final version that I really like. The new song is called "Decisive", it is basically a Progressive Metal song with some experimentation of sound that I added in the song. I am particularly happy with how the rhythm turns out.

Apart from writing the song, the mixing was quite challenging. I have never dealt with so many tracks in one song before that I had to be extremely careful with the EQ and panning to avoid instruments clashing each other.

Talking about the gear being used, I am very happy with my new Ibanez GRX720 7 string guitar that I acquired earlier this year. I recently put DiMarzio D-Activator 7 string on the bridge as well as Blaze 7 on the neck and the change of tone is quite drastic to be honest and now it sounds very good for metal and rock. Palm mutings have never been this tight, sustain has never been this long; however, the pickups punches the amp way too hard and makes it distorts very easily so I have to back down the gain a little bit to avoid oversaturation.

I also used my beloved American Standard HSS Stratocaster on this record for the middle part of the song. It is still configured as it was previously with DiMarzio Virtual Vintage Heavy Blues 2 and AirZone.

Effects, I am using MXR Dyna Comp coupled with Boss CS-3 as well as Boss GE-7 and Boss NS-2 to get a very pronounced pick attack and then run them into my old trustee Radial Tonebone Hot British and BB Preamp in front of a clean Mesa TA-30. Delays and reverbs are coming from DAW plugins from Reaper.

Anyway enough talking, here is the new song:


I hope you enjoy this song and please help me to share this song to your friends. Cheers for now! God bless :)

Stay tuned for my next post soon!

RECORDING SOME STUFF

Hello people, I'm glad to announce that I will come up with something before Christmas this year. It's an amateur recording of popular Christmas songs that I cover using many different genres that are mainly guitar driven. It's gonna be an instrumental album and the title is going to be called "LAGU KRESMES". I will post more detail soon. It's gonna feature my Stratocasters and my new Ibanez AK95DVS.

Anyway, many of you might be wondering about my recording setup at home so I will explain how I do recording in my home. For the software, I use AUDACITY, it's a free recording software that you can download. It has tons of great features such as EQ, Noise Removal, Panning, Time Shift, Split Stereo, Leveller, Compressor, etc.

For the hardware, I am using a cheap but good USB Mixer called Yamaha MW10C. It's connected directly to the USB of my PC. It has 10 channels with adjustable knobs such as level, treble, mid, bass, compression, pan, gain, etc. I don't use studio monitor, but I got a free JBL standard PC speakers that I use to listen to the recorded tracks. It does its job properly so I don't use professional studio monitor.

To record my guitar tracks, I use a Radial JDX direct amplifier box that's plugged in between my Mesa Transatlantic TA-30 and my Mesa Mini Recto Cab. It's not totally transparent but I'm able to EQ the tone to get it as similar as possible to the real sound that I'm getting from the cab using the Yamaha MW mixer's EQ knobs.

The bass tracks are coming from my Ibanez BTB775 bass that's plugged into my Line 6 POD X3. The keyboard tracks are from my Yamaha PSR keyboard plugged into my POD X3 as well. The drum tracks also come from the Yamaha keyboard. I can't afford buying real drum set at this time, I have to save some money first.

That's all for now, stay tuned for some audio clips, and thanks for checking this blog out, today we hit 12000 views! Cheers and God bless :)

OVERDRIVE PEDAL SHOOT OUT, REVIEW OF IBANEZ JEMINI, BOSS DISTORTION DS-1, SUPER OVERDRIVE SD-1

Hey everyone, today I just want to share a little bit of review about some Boss overdrive/distortion pedals that I currently have in my home right now as well as an Ibanez Jemini distortion pedal and see how they compare to the other pedals that I have reviewed before. These pedals belong to a friend of mine, Anthony Woen (thank you, Ko Awoen).

Ibanez Jemini
Everyone who knows Steve Vai must know that he has a signature distortion pedal called Jemini. It's actually two gain boxes being combined into a single form factor. Can be powered using a single 9V battery or 9V adapter (the battery compartment on the left side is not connected, it's just for spare battery). It has bright and save switch to reduce the LED brightness.

Basically the left side of the pedal is a modified Tube Screamer-ish pedal with some vintage feels but with lots of added low end and boost. It just feels so smooth and even and fat. It doesn't have too much mid hump compared to an original Tube Screamer. I heard that it was based on his modified TS808 by Keeley with some upgraded parts. I used it on a clean channel amp and it sounds wonderful, somewhere between my TS and BB preamp but with lots of low end. Steve probably used it as a boost on his crunch channel.

The right side of the pedal is actually a more straight forward distortion pedal with a lot of gain and presence. It has massive amount of gain, enough to turn your clean channel amp sound into a full stack distortion sound. It too also has huge amount of fatness and boost. It reminds me of an original DS-1 from the '80s which I don't have but heard many times. It has enough of drive to turn your guitar into a metal machine.

BTW, only one side can be turned on at a time, you can't turn both at the same time, I wish it can do that but it doesn't. Sad. But it's still one heck of a good pedal, though.

It's around $199.99, it sounds like two boutique pedals, it's true bypass, it's so colorful, and it's worth the money, like it or not. You got two good sounding boutique drive pedals in just one box, saves a lot of $$$ haha!

Boss Super Overdrive SD-1

A pretty good sounding overdrive pedal from a well-known maker: Boss. It's designed to rival Tube Screamers. It's not a Tube Screamer wanna-be FYI, it sounds different and it acts different. This one is similar like a Boss Blues Driver BD-2, just enough amount of gain without too much presence.

The knobs are pretty responsive and they all pretty straight forward. No nonsense here, just a simple, effective and good sounding overdrive pedal. It's not as fat as a Maxon OD or modified Tube Screamer, but you don't get too much low-end loss from this pedal.

Priced in just below $50.00 in U.S., this thing is a killer for sure. Please note however as with any Boss pedals, they're not true bypass. If you have a couple of them together they're gonna be just fine but if you had a lot of Boss pedals in your signal path, get a buffer pedal to strengthen your original signal, these pedals can cause tone sucking problem if you're not careful.

Boss Distortion DS-1

Similar to the pedal above but with more gain, less midrange and more presence. This is a very basic distortion pedal that already becomes standard for many other distortion pedals. It goes from a very low gain Tube Screamer-ish sound to a massive heavy metal sound with just a turn of a knob.

A very straight forward distortion pedal. Note however that this is not a boutique pedal, it does not have a lot of special things in it. Getting overtone harmonics and plenty of sustain requires more work with this pedal; but if you don't even care about that and just want a basic good sounding distortion pedal, this is a way to go.

It's important to know that lots of pedal makers are using DS-1 as a base to search their own unique sounds. So you can actually cover a lot of distortion sounds from using this pedal. It's priced just below $50 as well and it's not true bypass as I mentioned above. It's worth the price but requires you to be careful when combining this pedal with other non true bypass pedals.

Let the battle begins!
I made a sound clip of all of these distortion pedals being mixed together with my other drive pedals playing a same rock riff over and over but using different pedals.
Here's the order: BB Preamp - Maxon OD9/808 Silver Mod - Jemini Left - Jemini Right - SD1 - DS1 - RC Booster.

They're all being set with tone just before noon, drive between 2 and 3 o'clock and level varied a bit from one pedal to another to adjust the output from my preamp on clean channel. No other pedals are being used...

Here's the link : DISTORTION FIGHT

After you hear the sound clip, you'll see two sides of drive sound: one side is the normal distortion sound, the other side is the overdrive low gain Tube Screamer-ish sound. They're all good but note that some pedals are better for a certain situation while the others might be useful in other situation.

I hope you enjoy this post, thank's to all of you who keeps coming back to my posts! I really hope this post as well as the other posts will help you to find what you're looking for.

Cheers and God bless :)

JEM 7VWH

This JEM does not belong to me, I'm actually quite honored to have what used to be one of my dream guitar sitting in my house. It belongs to a friend of mine, Anthony Woen.

The look

I got a chance to analyze this JEM both in terms of sound and look. It's just gorgeous; its gold hardware, Edge Pro locking trem, vine tree inlay, jumbo frets, gotoh tuner, DiMarzio Evolutions and its monkey grip are just awesome!

The feel

It's the ancestor of the current Ibanez RG model, so naturally it has that oversized horns on its body just like my PGM and every other RG based guitars. The neck is just awesome! It's thin, meaning that it will help you run across the neck easily. Doesn't feel to good when you try to play chords here, a bit more thickness should help. It's thinner than my already flat PGM Prestige neck. I don't need to speak about the locking trem, it's just totally awesome, the same exact trem as what I have on my PGM.

Weight isn't too bad. It's an alder body guitar, it's supposed to be a bit heavier compared to a basswood guitar, but it isn't; in fact it is lighter than my PGM!

The sound

DiMarzio Evolution on the neck, middle and bridge. They're fantastic for modern hi-gain sound! The alder body and rosewood combination adds more tonal color to the overall sound. The JEM supposed to sound pretty bright due to the alder body but in fact it isn't that bright. It sounded pretty good on distortion pedals and tube pre-amp! Overtone harmonics are appearing on some spots in the neck, it has a strong punch in the mid-high mid area. Definitely a shredder's guitar! Either the neck and the bridge delivers punch and clarity. Roll back the volume and I get that sweet spot break-up sound.

On the clean channel, the neck pickup sounded like an SG. Very good for jazz runs, lots of fat tone that's good for chording as well. Combine the neck and the middle and I got a pretty subtle sounding clean signal, good for funk and general strumming. I didn't really use the middle pickup but mid+bridge gives me another good funk-type sound with some added treble. I don't really use the bridge pickup on the clean channel.

Sustain is pretty good. It doesn't hold as long as my PGM, but it does hold longer than every Strats that I've touched.

What it lacks

Nothing! This guitar is in fact one of the most versatile guitar on this planet. It does everything. However, not everyone will enjoy this guitar. The pickups are a bit too hot for me and I always prefer a single coil in the neck. Nonetheless, it's my preference; this guitar will surely blow you away if you're a Steve Vai fans or just someone looking for a HSH super strat.

The verdict

I compared this gorgeous JEM side by side with my PGM, and I recorded some tunes with both guitar on same settings just so you can hear the difference between how the JEM and the PGM sound. All clips started with my PGM first, and then the JEM later.

Clean signal: CLICK HERE

Chorus added: CLICK HERE

Screamer and delay: CLICK HERE

Fat crunch rhythm: CLICK HERE

I hope you enjoy this post.

Cheers and God bless ! :)

DIMARZIO PAF 7

So sorry for the very lack of update last week, I went to so many places and didn't have much time to update the blog. Anyway, here I am with a review of DiMarzio PAF 7, the seven string DiMarzio low output PAF style pickup.

A little bit of background

It's supposed to sound like a regular PAF on Les Paul guitars. This one is formulated for seven string guitar and it has that low output sound of a weak magnet humbucker that makes it so sweet.

I installed mine on my RG7321 on the neck position. It doesn't sound good right away, but after I tweaked a little bit with the pickup height, I got my sweet spot right away.

Sound

The sound is very good, this is totally the best low output pickup for seven string guitar! This pickup doesn't boost the mid and bass like other high gain seven string guitar pickups, instead it adds a little bit more open-sound quality with more treble. On the neck position on a very dark sounding guitar, it will sound pretty much like the old PAF pickup on a '50s Les Paul guitar. Its low output doesn't mean it's not good for metal or shreddy stuffs, it's actually the best pickup on the neck for a fast legato runs! Doesn't get muddy is what it does best, so if you're frustrated with your seven string of getting too muddy and bassy, this pickup is the solution.

Keep in mind that it has what they call Virtual Vintage technology, you can do coil split and get a super sweet single coil-like sound that's pretty pleasing to hear. I don't make mine to sound like that but I guess you should be pleased if you have a coil tap function available on your guitar right now and you're thinking to get this pickup.

Price and worthiness

$70.00, It's worth every penny I spent for sure. This is one of the best replacement pickup for a seven string available. Probably the lowest output pickup replacement for seven strings.

From 0 to 10

10 ! Sounds totally awesome and not too expensive.

Stay tuned for audio clips.

Cheers and God bless :)

SEYMOUR DUNCAN JB

Hey all! Today I decided to review one of the most popular humbucker replacement pickup on the market. It's made by Seymour Duncan and it's called Seymour Duncan JB(Jeff Beck). This pickup is one of the earliest medium-high output pickup that's available in the market.

The sound

The sound that I'm getting out of this relatively high output pickup is very bright and happy, much like the original PAF of a Les Paul. It does not get bass-y, it does not punch you with too much mid, it stays clear on a highly driven channel and it somehow has some unique treble-ish sound, much like a single coil.

On the bridge

I installed mine on the bridge. I got the 7 string model by the way, because I currently don't have any 6 string guitar left for modification. I put this pup on an RG7321 that originally has AH pickups by Ibanez that's totally muddy and way too hot to control. I put a DiMarzio PAF 7 on the neck to balance this med-high output pup.

I really like this pickup, it shines very well and cut through the mix nicely even with high gain amp. Roll back the tone knob a little bit and you get a more defined mid frequencies and less harsh treble. Play some palm-muted riffs on my seven string, it sounds great! The chops are very clear, very pronounced and retains the original sound of the pickup. Drive this pickup as hard as you can, then roll back the volume pot and you'll get your sweet spot immediately, sparkle clear dirty-clean tone with some extra punch.

So far so good..

One thing that I hate from this pickup is the treble level that can be too dangerous especially when you crank up everything on your signal path. That's why you need a tone knob for this pickup. It'll be your best friend when you want to control the sound of this pickup. Other than that, I'm quite happy with this pickup!

Beware, this is not meant to be a high-gain friendly pickup. It's designed to give you more dynamics on your sound, not to compress and further drive your amp. I'm happy with it because it suits well with mid-gain type of guitar music. If you plan to play heavy metal music with this pup, you better be prepared. It doesn't mean it's a bad pickup for metal music, but you have to know how to control the pup properly. See my previous post about pickups for more explanation.

Worth the money?

Yessss!! For $80.00, this thing upgrades the sound of your guitar with some added clarity.

From 0 to 10?

What can I say? 10.

Hope you enjoy this review, sound clip coming soon!

Cheers and God bless :)

MY MODDED JEM-JR

Introduction
I just finished modding my Korean Ibanez JEM-JR WN today and I'm really glad with the result and I want to share it with all of you my dearest readers.

The original un-modded version of this guitar features an Ibanez ILT floating locking tremolo and Ibanez INF series pickups on all positions. It was my very first guitar that I own and not borrow from other people. It costs around $500 when it first came out and I pay almost the same price for that. I got lots of beautiful memories with this guitar, I learned a lot of materials using this guitar and it's been very friendly to me until today.

For some tone chasers, entry level Ibanez guitars probably won't please them as they sound crappy(sorry) and they feel crappy(sorry) as well. But not for me, this guitar is pretty versatile and reliable except that the ILT trem broke one day and I replaced it with Korean Floyd Rose. Now with the modifications, I even dare to compare my baby to some high-end good sounding Strat or Strat-like guitar, YEAH BABY !

Now onto the modifications

First of all, the modification that I did is to replace the trem of course as I mentioned above, the ILT proved to be a non reliable trem.

Then I replaced the pickups as usual with DiMarzios. On the neck and middle, I put Virtual Vintage Heavy Blues 2. They sounded SUPER AMAZING; the tone is very SRV 70-ish and works well with mild and heavy overdrive units. On the bridge I put PAF Pro and I got that Paul Gilbert tone instantly on my bridge position!

On a clean rig, the singles sounded very Strat-ish with all those glassy sparkly highs but with some extra mid punch while the PAF Pro sounds almost like a single coil but with more lows and mids and of course it's hotter than the others although not too much. All of the pickups are pretty low output and as I did with my PGM, I reduces the height of the neck pickup and increases the height of the bridge pickup to get instant less gain sound by just switching the pickup.

PAF Pro vs AT hum, VVHB2 vs Cruiser

The PAF Pro is not as hot as the AT humbucker and it lacks the mid punch that the AT humbucker has, but it has better high and clarity compared to the AT. The VVHB2 sounds much more like a hot strat compared to the Cruisers, but the Cruisers has more pronounced bottom and treble compared to the VVHB2. All of them are great but they're all different in terms of sound characteristics.

Nonetheless, they're all very impressive in terms of performance and tone. Easy to play with and sounds pretty well when combined together. No complaints, no flaw, it's like having a new guitar. I even dare to challenge someone with an American Deluxe strat on a tone match because it sounds almost like a vintage Strat with an LP humbucker now(or even better than that, I have 24 frets and floating trem, Strat comes with 22 mostly haha!).

Korean Floyd vs ILT vs Edge Pro

The new Floyd trem sounds okay to me. It's not as smooth as Edge Pro trem and it does not have extremely long sustain, but it's much better than the ILT tremolo. The tone that I'm getting from the trem is similar to the tone of a vintage style tremolo of a strat or something, twangy and rounded but not as twangy as a Telecaster. It does not stay in tune as good as the ILT and Edge Pro though because it has different string insertion mechanism.

More mods on the way

Next, I added capacitors on my volume knob as well as a resistor on parallel to make that treble bleed mod and reduce the output a little bit so the entire signal won't get too hot. But I also take out the tone knob and put the volume knob on the former tone knob routing. I get more volume by doing that. If I put Cruisers and AT humbucker, I'll probably get similar tone to my modded PGM ha ha !

Tone pot that blocks the tone

By the way, removing tone pot really helps the tone to get more volume and uncompressed feeling. That tone pot is actually a potentiometer or in an easier term: an adjustable resistor. Putting resistor in series with your signal will cause current reduction and thus you get lower output from your pickups. It also compressed the overall guitar sound a little bit. If you have the courage and heart to try something new, and if you rarely use your tone knob, try taking it/them out and hear the positive difference!

For this guitar, I won't be able to post audio clip or anything like that until probably next year when all my rigs will be transported back from Seattle to Indonesia. When that happens, we can probably hear some clips of me comparing the JEM and PGM using same FX units! How cool is that !!!

Visually unappealing

The overall modification sounds great but it DOESN'T look great. That's because now the single coil on the neck position does not cover the humbucker routing completely. I have to get a new pickguard to solve that aesthetic-related problem.

I don't really care though to be honest

As long as it sounds good, I don't complain. Right now, all I want to do is play that baby all day long and all night long. I plug it through a digital crappy(sorry) Korg Tonework AX1500 and now the overall tone that I'm getting is almost like using a POD X3 Live, very very lively thanks to those modifications.

I hope this post will be useful for everyone who reads this.

Cheers and God bless :)

p.s. One more week until I'm able to post audio clips to my posts!

MY MODDED PGM30

I own a 2004 Japanese PGM30WH with Edge Pro tremolo and Prestige neck that was given to me from my Dad sometime in 2006. It's been my main guitar for 5 years now and it's sort of becoming one with me, I can't imagine living with another guitar but this.

For those who doesn't know PGM: it's Paul Gilbert's signature Ibanez series. Paul Gilbert has been using Ibanez PGMs for a long time although recently he uses Ibanez Fireman more frequently. All PGMs have painted fake f-holes on the body and most of them are basswood body with maple or maple+rosewood neck. The body shape is very similar to Ibanez RG and most of them don't have tone knobs.

Originally, my PGM comes with Infinity INF pickups that have pretty high output, I don't know exactly but the bridge one I guess is in the range of 450mV judging from the sound. That is okay for quite some time when I'm still into heavy stuffs but once I started to play something with more dynamic, the pups don't do any good anymore.

I replaced the pickups with DiMarzio Cruiser Bridge on the neck and middle, I put DiMarzio AT-1 humbucker on the bridge and I accidentally removed the Ibanez logo on the headstock. I put humbucker pickup cover on the neck single coil just so that I don't miss having humbucker on the neck haha !

The DiMarzios are working very great, I got the exact Andy Timmons'(YES, him again) pups set and that helps me to get closer to his tone. I set the neck pup to be slightly lower from the strings and I raised the bridge humbucker a little bit so I get unbalanced volume level. This is kind of weird and people tend to set all pups to be at the same volume level, but I like it since I can get lower volume just by switching to the neck pup without having to press on any pedal or roll the volume knob.

By the way, I put a 300k ohms resistor in parallel with the cap on my volume pots and it helps the tone a little bit. One thing that I love mostly about this modded guitar is the fact that it doesn't have a tone knob which makes the guitar sounds much better (Paul Gilbert is a genius !). I compared this with a fellow RG with the same Wizard II neck and equipped with the same INF pups before I modded mine with DiMarzios and this thing sounds much better, more fat, more clear tops, more dynamics, more volume as well.

The bridge is actually an original Edge Pro tremolo by Ibanez(I can't find a picture of a pgm with that trem on the internet, sorry) and that bridge totally rocks ! Well, I actually hate the fact that it's a locking trem since I can't do crazy tunings, but it stays in tune forever and the little metal where the string hits on the trem is actually very good for the sustain. I used extra light gauge (.008 extra slinky) for this guitar and it still sounds great.

The neck is a little bit thicker than your usual RG necks. Anyway, if you're a tone chaser, you'll already know that thicker neck means thicker tone. It's still very playable although you don't really have a good comfort when playing chord since the thickness of the neck isn't balanced with a rounder neck shape.

This thing has been abused many times; I broke my trem arm once, I almost lost the neck pickup, I carried it on my car trunk without hard case, I bring it out to a gig during rainy day without gig bag or anything; yet this guitar's doesn't get any issue besides few minor very-hard-to-see scratches from my jazz III pick during strumming sessions. Oh, I replaced the switch once BTW, it broke due to too much pickup switching that I did haha !

I won't sell this guitar for sure, this thing is already my part of the body. This guitar also hinders me from buying new guitar since this one sets the standard of tone and playability pretty high. This is not a relic Strat '68 with special neck joint plate, this is not a '57 Les Paul with gold top finish and original PAF pickups and this doesn't worth as much as them. If this guitar is available in the market, it would cost probably less than $1000.00 for a new one with the exact same specs.

I didn't find any flaw on this guitar except that the white paint slowly turns to yellow-ish white. I don't really care though, it still looks neat and it still sounds great, those are what matter the most. If this guitar died, I would probably get an RG with Edge Pro trem and put the same mods that I've done to that RG. I would even probably throw away the tone knob for better tone.

I'll post some sound clip of this guitar soon :)

Hope you enjoy, cheers and God bless !

IBANEZ TONE LOK WEEPING DEMON WD7

Tone Chaser Class: Introduction to Wah Pedal 101(skip if you're a tone chaser)
In the world of modern electric guitar music, wah pedals are commonly used in many different areas covering rhythm and lead playing styles. Hendrix was among the first one to use this type of FX and this inspires lots of players nowadays to add wah pedal to their rig.

In the world of serious tone chasers and guitar gear heads, the word WAH will summon a generally known picture in their mind; a picture of dark valley covered with disturbing thoughts of tone sucking creatures that will haunt their precious tone all day all night. I'm sorry, this is a little bit too much but basically most wah pedal sucks your tone even in off-switch position.

Okay...

I got this pedal long time ago since it was the only wah pedal available in my town. I used it back then when I was still playing Guns N' Roses and needed a wah to play Sweet Child of Mine. Then I used this pedal also for Satriani and Vai stuffs.

The thing I like about this wah is the fact that it has automatic mode, you press the rocker and it turns on without having to hit the switch. Also I like the controls that are very flexible. You can cover wide range of frequencies (or Q) and adjust how sharp or wide is the sweep. Other useful control is the low tuning mode to make the wah covers lower frequencies.

I must say I can cover lots of ground using only this wah. No comparison has been made with other pedals but the good thing is I can cover so many frequency sweeps by just changing the knobs and suddenly I have a new sound, almost like having a new wah pedal !

That's kinda cool

Well not everything is cool with this pedal. They said that this pedal is using true bypass switching. NOT TRUE. I recognize that this pedal sucks tone when turned off. It's been proven, I can hear the difference(hopefully I'll post some audio clips soon). Well, it's not too much since this pedal is using buffered switching system and it's impossible to use 3PDT or 4PDT switch since it won't be compatible with the automatic on/off mode. But it bothers me to be honest since I am using low output pickups.

Oh and keep in mind that this pedal is not funk ready; it adds small amount of gain to your tone when engaged, so this can only be good if you're using an already saturated signal. If you want a super clean funk wah tone, this pedal won't make you happy.

Not true bypass :(, but is it worth?

Roughly less than $100.00 for a new one, this is where it starts to get tricky. If you really need to use multiple wah sounds and you don't mind buffered switching that's sucking your tone a little bit then this pedal will totally worth your money. But if you really want to keep the integrity of your whole signal chain, then I don't really think this is the best choice in this price. Add $60 bucks and you already got a boutique wah with true bypass switching called Budwah by Budda, check it out. I haven't got a chance to try one, but Andy Timmons(yes, him again) uses one and it sounds great in my opinion (FYI boutique wah can reach $200.00 or more).

Final verdict, from 0 to 10

*sigh* I can only give this pedal a 7.5. What's keeping it from getting lower score is the great enclosure, the auto on/off, the flexibility, the Tonelok(press the knob down and you won't hit it accidentaly with your feet) and the size of the rocker that fits perfectly to my right foot.

If this pedal comes with true bypass with no gain reduction, I'll give it an 8.7. If this pedal comes with gain reduction and no true bypass, I'll give it a 9.2. Comes with both, 10 if it does not pass $160.00.

Cheers and God bless :)

IBANEZ AIRPLANE FLANGER AF2

Pablo Gilberto

I am a big fan of Paul Gilbert's work and been checking out his guitar setup and try to incorporate his ideas into my setup. This pedal just came out by the time I checked his youtube video explaining what it does, and of course it was still pricey back then so I just kind of let it slipped away from me. But I got blessed with so many caring friends around me and they bought me this pedal for me as a birthday present(thank you guys :) ).

Two buttons?

Yes, two buttons, one for on/off true bypass switch and one for mode selection. This cool pedal has two modes: taxi and take off. Taxiing, you can get normal flanger sound that I will explain below; take off-ing, you will get a super crazy self oscillation mode with just speed knob to control the speed.

Organic flanger pedal

On the Taxi mode, let me say that this thing is not your average flanger pedal. This thing packs a lot of organic quality; the flanger timing is a little bit random to a certain degree and while it colors your tone, it still let the majority of your signal to be noticed transparently. The knobs have broad range of controls so you can make the pedal acts as transparent as possible with almost chorus-like quality to the most heavy tone-coloration you can possibly get.

My personal setup is to have all the knobs at the very minimum to aim for that chorus-like sound that I really like. Personally, I am not really a flanger guy like Paul Gilbert, I don't really have the skill to tame the non-precise timed flanger sound but this pedal really makes things become interesting without making me struggle.

4 knobs with strange names

Manual is for controlling the delay time, Speed is for controlling the speed of course, Range is for controlling the frequency range of the flanger and Enhance is for controlling the amount of coloration.

Cabin crew take off position

The Take Off mode really sets your pedal to generate crazy auto whammy sound that will never stop. It will just go up and down like a police siren with some degree of original signal replication. I can hardly hear my original tone AND note when I'm in Take Off mode. You can get down and play with the speed knob to get even crazier slow-fast-up-down self-oscillating skull-cracking auto whammy.

It's a flanger, how often do you use it?

If it's normal flanger, I don't even want to have one, I tried one many times before but it's not my type of FX. But this one? I can turn it on on every channel: clean, dirty, lead, whatever channel and I can have that shimmery effect that enhance the 3D-ness of my signal and add some organic quality to my tone. I don't turn it on all the time though because some songs requires simpler more straight forward type of sound, but when I want something cool, this pedal is always on.

Value for its price

A true bypass pedal with a unique sound and organic quality, this pedal is worth the money. I think now the price is not as expensive as before and you can get it for less than $150.00 for sure. This is not too pricey for something this good, and considering that this is a signature pedal, this thing is probably a steal for that price :p.

Like it so far

I find this pedal is almost flawless.....except that it's BIG. May or may not cause any space related problem to your pedalboard. Powered with 9V standard adapter, does not accept battery power.

From 0 to 10

10. Period.

Normal sound clip: HERE, it contains three different settings: first no effect, second with chorus-ey flanger, third with more straight forward flanger.

Takeoff sound clip: HERE, it contains original overdriven sound with the takeoff mode in the middle, you'll know it from how it sounds!

Cheers and God bless :D

p.s. check out Silence Followed by A Deafening Roar album by Paul Gilbert to hear this pedal in action during Take Off mode. Paul also used the Take Off mode during live gig when performing an older Mr. Big song called Alive and Kickin'.

ANALOGMAN OD-9/808 WITH SILVER MOD

I bought this pedal from Analogman's website and it's one of the best version of Tube Screamer in the market I must say. Maxon is the original company that designed TS for Ibanez. They now produce their own TS9 that is quite different from the original TS from '70s Ibanez era.

Are you serious? Another Tube Screamer?

YES. In fact, this is one of the best version of Tube Screamer available. This OD9 is using JRC4558 chip that IS EXACTLY THE SAME as the original TS808/TS9 that many players put on their pedal board: Eric Johnson, Andy Timmons(YES, him again), Stevie Ray Vaughan....

So yes, this is another Tube Screamer.....BUT

The one that I purchased from Analogman features Silver Mod. That was basically capacitors and components upgrades to increase clarity and warmth a little bit. It also add more sustain to the overall sound. And this Maxon version is already True Bypass. Sound-wise, it does not have high amount of gain to be honest, even when I tried to crank this thing up all the way, it does not saturate too much. This is great as a clean boost and that amount of gain can be used to replicate the tone of a vintage tube amp that is pushed right after it starts to saturate.

This might means it's not for heavy stuffs, but it add pleasant touches to your tone. I got earlier Andy Timmons' famous Electric Gypsy tone by using this pedal on a clean channel.

I'm sorry though, I haven't got a chance to review this with any other Tube Screamers on the market. I tried an Ibanez TS9, but that thing cuts the bass a little bit, so I prefer this box rather than the original Ibanez version.

Wow that sounds great, but was it worth?

I forgot how much I spent but I think it was around $200.00 since I opted for the Silver Mod. This is so much more expensive compared to any other Tube Screamer on the market. I would love to compare this as a modded pedal with other modded TS from Keeley or everyone else. I know that Keeley TS has been used by many people including John Petrucci and that must says something. Unfortunately, Petrucci does use it in an already saturated amp so I don't know how it originally sounds.

It sounds good though, so I think it is still worth every penny.

Other thoughts?

I plugged mine before an AMT SS-11 Preamp that I use as a tube amp replication box since I am not allowed to play with tube amp in my apartment *sad*. It sounds very bluesy overall as a gain box. If you have not ever try any Tube Screamer pedal or even know what a TS is, this thing is an instant Stevie Ray Vaughan replicator if you have a strat style guitar with bright single coils. Very effective to add smoothness to your already saturated amp, you can set it to be your "lead switch" and step on it when you begin your solo.

How I set it up personally

Drive around 12 to 2pm, Tone around 4pm(YES, this is what a TS is famous for!), and as usual Level depends on your entire rig, I set mine around 10am.

Sounds almost perfect! Anything missing?

It lacks bass frequencies. I guess that's the nature of any Tube Screamers we all can find in this world. But hey, this thing sounded great already and you can reduce the Tone knob a bit to get a little of that bass back but sacrifice the famous tone everyone loves :D. This might not be true, I mean how can reducing treble adds the bass if we talk about circuitry, but if you add more Level while reducing the Tone, this will help to achieve that effect.

From 0 to 10

I will give this fantastic box an 8.9! Price is the main factor. The lack of bass does not really bother me that much since this is already warmer than most TSes in the market.

So what bothers you?

The switch. It's so hard to step on it even if it's angled. It's not your regular small circular switch, it's almost similar to a Boss style switch but smaller and placed in the middle with not too much height difference compared to the enclosure around it. However, note that the usual TS9 has the same switch, so I can't really complain.

Check it out : www.analogman.com

Audio clip: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12709731/sound%20demo/maxon%20od9.mp3

Cheers and God bless !

p.s stay tuned for audio clips for this post and my previous BB Preamp :) Will be around sometime in August